


Memento Mori

by Lannakitty



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Angst, Death References, Exestentialism, Gen, Nihilism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-28
Updated: 2011-04-28
Packaged: 2017-10-19 19:15:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/204306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lannakitty/pseuds/Lannakitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Episode Coda to Pax Romana. Helen and Will discuss what happened after their execution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memento Mori

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to get it in for the flashfic challenge but didn't quite make it. Thanks to [](http://kgaleway.livejournal.com/profile)[**kgaleway**](http://kgaleway.livejournal.com/) for early reads and [](http://grav-ity.livejournal.com/profile)[**grav_ity**](http://grav-ity.livejournal.com/) for help with the end.

_Don't call us, we'll call you._ The message had been quite clear, though Ranna hadn't phrased it quite that way. Nothing of the trip had happened quite as expected. Few of her questions had been answered and now more lay before her. Some of the answers she'd found made it hard to care about any of the new questions.

But she would soldier on. As she always had.

As she always would.

Unless she died again.

Helen buried herself in her work. She was quite accomplished at that, and the routine settled around her like a favorite coat. Yet, tendrils of thought would strike her, like unexpected chill winds, creeping between the seams of calm familiarity, poking icy fingers at the edges of her resolve. Deliberately turning her thoughts away from the experience of Praxis, Helen attempted to bring order back into her thoughts and life. It was harder in the dead of night when no one else was around, but she continued on, because that was what she did. Helen carefully tried to keep her struggle from affecting her work or interpersonal relationships, but part of her had started to wonder, "why go to all that trouble to maintain the charade?"

Helen looked up when Will sat across from her days later, expression serious, focused.

"We need to talk," he stated without preamble or room for argument.

She could evade, or propose some item of business she needed to deal with right then, or some other reason - excuse if she were being truthful - that she needed to leave. Poised on the edge of flight, she caught the look in her newest protege's eyes and saved her document. Helen set aside her papers and folded her hands in her lap.

"Very well."

Will's eyebrows rocketed up but he quickly recovered and sat across from her. "I'm doing this for you own good you know."

She nodded once.

"Because you did the same for me."

"How are you dealing? The others? I can't imagine Henry and Kate are doing well."

"Kate got drunk and had a bitch session with Biggie that I caught the tail end of. Henry and I have talked a couple times and he spent the better part of the weekend on Skype." The look her gave her was pointed.

 _We're trying to cope, we know we're mortal. Don't avoid the question._

Helen's gaze flicked to the too-cheerful spring weather then back at her desk. The picture of Ashley smiled at her. Helen swallowed. "Mind if we take a walk.?"

* * *

The ivy climbing the back wall was a brilliant green against the cool grey of the stone. Older leaves, ones that had escaped the gardener the previous fall, grew in at a darker shade. The effect was beautiful. The ivy had been growing here longer than she'd owned the property and the vines were very thick in places. Perfect for a six year old to climb. Her eyes squeezed shut, but tears and words escaped.

"She wasn't there." Helen looked away. Her eyes burned, chest heavy with emotion. She flinched a little when Will touched her shoulder. The hand retreated and she felt a furious satisfaction in that, just a little. Shame for feeling that way, yes, but part of her needed to wallow in the darker emotions.

"Magnus-"

She waved him off and let the tears come. Will and the ivy could watch for all she cared. The green and grey blurred. Part of her said it was stupid and she should pull herself together. Part of her wanted to just give up, for what was the point?

"I'm a scientist," she explained at length. "I've been open to ideas. I thought I'd seen compelling evidence from either side. When-" she voice broke. "When Ashley died, I thought perhaps...Perhaps I'd root for the afterlife."

"When I became sick, there was a comfort in knowing I'd had a long life; more than my fair share really. I'd see all the friends I've outlived. I'd be able to show my mother the work I'd done and the woman I'd become. And Ashley- I'd be able to tell her how much I love her. How sorry I was that I hadn't shown her more, praised her more, hadn't hugged her as often as I should have, how proud I was of who she'd become despite my blundering. How much meaning and brightness she gave to my life. How sorry I was that I'd let her go on that last mission."

"She wasn't there." Helen swallowed and surreptitiously wiped her eyes. "No one was." She took a deep breath. "With your experience in India, you were hardly dead for long. We were- We were dead for a very long time, Will." She sighed. "And I find that both depressing and disappointing."

"We've noticed."

She looked down. Heavy tears rolled off her cheeks and fell to the ground with audible plops. "I'm sorry. This is no way to act." But what was the point of it? Of any of it? The end had been nothing, a great anticlimax. They had the unenviable position of knowing, for a fact, that nothing lay on the other side. There was no other side. It put everything into a very cold, stark light.

 _You're not dead yet,_ something told her. She wanted to believe that, but she'd been there. And there was nothing. It made caring for anything very hard. She'd tried, because others didn't know what she did and didn't deserve her neglect. And yet...Why?

There was no reward, no rest from her work. Perhaps it was a comfort to know she could die, but it ultimately didn't matter. She'd been trying not to follow that train of logic too far; too much of her still rebelled against the growing instinct to give up. Helen was far too responsible to simply stop, but her mind still turned over the facts and came to the same conclusions. Knowledge wore on her soul - if she had such a thing. At least in death she wouldn't feel regret and disappointment around her neck like a millstone.

She wouldn't feel anything.

"I can't believe Ashley would want you to feel like that," Will said quietly.

"Ashley's gone," Helen replied, perhaps with a bit more bite than she'd intended. "And it's become quite clear-" she broke off. It was clear that the last, faint hope she'd held of somehow, someway connecting with her, with anyone who'd gone before, was a futile effort. Much like life. And oh, that was a dark thought. It made her feel sick for the truth of it.

Will sighed and studied the wall. At length he said, "I don't think it works like that."

Helen looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

"I don't think we're supposed to know, and I don't think it was our time." He turned to face her. "I didn't see my parents, or at least I don't _remember_ it. But I did see Kali, and eventually recalled that. Not knowing what I saw or didn't see," he broke off and shook his head. "You know what that did to me."

"You were only technically dead for a moment, Will."

"So were we."

"For hours rather than the brief time you were down in Mumbai."

"In Mumbai I was packed in ice and they almost didn't start me back up again. Praxis has better technology. They did to us what they did to Worth. They held him in stasis and stuffed him in a closet after they killed him, didn't they?" He gestured. "Shouldn't he have moved on? Was he pulled back? Did he never go?" Will shrugged. "Are we an all or nothing entity? Were we really dead? When you have technology like that how do you define that limit? I don't know. You don't know. We don't know how this works."

"I think that's rather obvious now. When we die, we stop and that is the end. We were reactivated like the sophisticated machines we are." The truth was bitter on her tongue. She hadn't realized how much she'd wished to be more.

"Bullshit."

Her eyes flicked over to him and she felt a stab of anger. His face was a thundercloud.

"Will-"

"I know I'm more than that." He waved the though aside. "Would we _want_ to know what's on the other side? I don't think that's knowledge we're supposed to have. Look at what a little bit has done to you, what it did to me. Is this really something we can comprehend?"

Helen had no answer. As much as she wished she could accept that, she'd spent a lifetime in study and research, pursuing matters of reason and logic, believing data and proven science. She had first hand proof, and several first hand examples besides. All the ecclesial  
or esoteric theory in the world didn't mean anything against hard data.

"What did Ashley believe?" Will asked, voice more gentle than before.

Helen blinked and looked away. "We've never been religious but she believed in the spirits of things, in the soul. When she was younger we spoke of it." A small smile tugged at her lips. "She wasn't sure she knew how it all worked, but she accepted it was there." Helen had as well, believing she'd seen enough evidence it was a very sound theory.

Ashley had been a respectful hunter for all her brashness and talk of fighting. Helen had been terrified John's madness would be within her, but she'd never taken life callously. Early lessons with her dear Old Friend stuck with her and Helen had been proud. Much of his philosophy had been imprinted on her and Helen hadn't minded at all, had perhaps taken cues from her daughter and friend.

How horrified Ashley must have been when she realized what the Cabal had made her body do. Helen shivered, stomach turning. She was beyond comfort now. Her last moments had been so brave even in the face of what they'd done to her. And nothing. At least she was beyond disappointment, fear and pain as well. The thought rang hollow.

Helen followed the thickest vine of the ivy as it reached for the sky. "When she was six, Ashley tried to climb this. She fell and how she didn't break anything was a mystery, but she needed stitches. I found her at the top of the wall the next day. We had to get the ladder to get her down. When I asked her why she'd climbed the wall anyway when I'd asked her not to, she looked at me very seriously and said if she didn't climb this wall, she'd be afraid to climb anything else." All that she'd been, all that she could have been, was gone. All of James' brilliance, her mother's kindness, Barney's stoic dependence, Nigel's wry humor, the good and bad of everyone she'd known - utterly worthless ash.

Helen closed her eyes. "I am very tired, Will."

"If you had seen her," Will proposed, "What would you think now? What would Ashley have thought?"

Helen clasped her hands together. Certainly she wouldn't do anything hasty. At least she didn't think, she would. When had the thought of rest become so tempting?

"I think I would be sad to leave her, but she'd want for me to go back if it wasn't my time. She-" Helen stopped. "She knew how important work was to me. How many people rely on me. On all of us keeping the network running. Ashley was very good about sharing our time."

She shouldn't have had to share so much. Helen had loved teaching her. Bringing her on missions had served as a way to teach Ashley as well as give them time to be together and get what she needed to do, accomplished. She felt a fresh wave of sickness roll over her, clenching around her heart. Despair for her daughter and for herself. She should have spent their time more wisely.

"I would be sad, but I'd know I'd be with her someday. I could stand living for a bit longer." Helen visually traced the vibrant green clinging to the lifeless stone. "I'd like to think she'd have been proud we weren't broken."

"And how would she feel if you stopped now?"

"She doesn't feel, Will."

"You don't know that."

"You don't know that either."

"How would she feel if you gave up?"

"I appreciate what you're trying to do, Will. I'm not suicidal. Just...disillusioned."

"So, what? Everything we do is meaningless?"

"That's the hard truth of it, Will." She looked at him for a moment. His jaw was set and his eyes narrowed in anger. There was fear as well, for her, of her, of life, she wasn't sure. "It isn't anything I relish knowing, and we as a species are very good at denial and forgetting. There are moments where I've contemplated our place, but like most I've run away, hiding behind not knowing." She returned her gaze to the the wall. "I find I can no longer run. It isn't a comfortable truth. I don't like it, but there it is."

"I'm trying to accept it, to move on even though it's ultimately futile. It's proving to be difficult."

"I've never really liked Existential Nihilism. It's counterproductive and," he paused. "Disappointing. Disillusioning."

She winced slightly as he threw her words back at her.

"So what now? What's next?," he snapped. "Are you going to barricade yourself in your office and pretend to work? Just walk away? Disappear? I assume there’s some kind of paperwork for that.”

“Will - ”

“No, really, because I’ve talked with Declan, and even though James had some things in place when he died, it was still a nightmare to transfer everything to Declan’s control.”

Helen closed her eyes. She could still hear him beside her, hear the low rumble of traffic on the other side of the wall and the faint sounds of birds. She felt the gentle breeze and the light tough of warmth from the sun peaking around the clouds. Her suit was soft under her fingers. The garden smelly faintly of damp earth. Yet the world tasted like ash on her lips.

In death she'd not had sensation, nor her thoughts to panic about the lack of sensory input. The problems had begun when she'd come back.

Helen opened her eyes again, tracing the ivy down to the ground and along the base of the wall. It spread into the yard, making half circle around a little dogwood. The flowers were tinted slightly pink, just opening. They'd planted that tree together when Ashley had been five. Ashley had been disappointed that the dogwood had nothing to do with dogs. If they left the ivy, the base of the tree would be swallowed. It might climb the tree, taking it down bit by bit until it died under the siege. If she stood still, the ivy would overcome her as well.

"After Mumbai I did some reading. Some talking. I decided that I was responsible for giving my life meaning, for living it passionately and sincerely."

"Kierkegaard?" She asked after a moment of searching her memory for where she'd heard that sentiment before.

She caught his nod out of the corner of her eye. She turned and looked out over the sunlit garden, coming back to the little tree. That was the other option. To pretend, to live the lie. She knew what Ashley’s choice would have been, what others had chosen, what her friends would want her to choose. She had done it before, in hope. If she did it again now, no one would have to know it was a lie.

“You already have enough trouble staying up to date on your paper work,” she said, and wondered if he would buy it.

Maybe, if she lied long enough, she might begin to believe it herself.

 _The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,  
But I have promises to keep,  
And miles to go before I sleep,  
And miles to go before I sleep. _  
-Robert Frost  



End file.
